114 BULLETIN 17 0, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



hordes of insects that often detract materially from the pleasure of 

 night driving at this period were conspicuously absent. It is not 

 difficult to imagine, therefore, that the Sparrow Hawk was forced 

 to turn to other sources of food." 



Floyd Bralliar (1922) was successful "in learning exactly how these 

 birds kill their prey, for," he says, "I not only saw them do it at close 

 range, but succeeded in scaring them away without their having time 

 to carry the chick with them. The hawk watches until he feels sure 

 of his prey, then swoops downward straight as an arrow, strikes the 

 bird in the back with his talons, and with his powerful beak tears the 

 top of the head off. The point of the beak is sunk into the base of 

 the skull, and the skull is torn off with a swift forward motion. I 

 succeeded in getting a number of chickens immediately after the hawk 

 struck them, and every one had the whole upper part of the skull 

 torn off, the brain exposed, and the medulla mangled with the point 

 of the hawk's beak." 



To see a sparrow hawk strike a bird at rest on the ground is a 

 wonderful sight, but the act is so rapid that "ere a man hath power 

 to say, Behold" it is over. The present is obliterated; we look on 

 something which is past. A long straight swoop, a flash of wings, 

 and the hawk is off with its prey. "So quick bright things come to 

 confusion." 



Behavior. — What appeals to us most in this daring little falcon is 

 its lightness and quickness — the speed of lightning compared to the 

 crash of thunder. Whether dashing past with sweeping wing beats, 

 each wing beat carrying it far away; whether cruising along — the 

 tail folded thin and the sharp wings, like a three-pointed star — the 

 wings barely trembling, like the tips of oars just touching the water; 

 or whether soaring against the sky, with tail fanned out, the wings 

 stretched wide, it is always ready to veer like a flash, to mount higher, 

 to drop to the ground, or to come to rest on a little twig. 



Often too — perhaps the most remarkable of its aerial accomplish- 

 ments — the bird, arresting its flight through the air, hovers, facing 

 the wind, its body tilted upward to a slight angle with the ground, 

 its wings beating lightly and easily. Then, sometimes, with a precise 

 adjustment to the force of the wind, it stops the beating of its wings 

 and hangs as if suspended in complete repose and equilibrium, seeming 

 to move not a hair's breadth from its position. It is hunting, scanning 

 the ground for a grasshopper or a mouse. 



There are several instances recorded in the literature that show 

 the lighter side of the sparrow hawk's character in its relation to other 

 birds. In some of these the association is of a playful nature as in 

 the case mentioned by Edward R. Warren (1916), who "once saw 

 one Sparrow Hawk after three Redtails", and in that related by 



